


The Face Behind His Eyes

by SickSadWorldLady



Series: Four Punches Logan Echolls Threw, and One He Didn't [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:09:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3577344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SickSadWorldLady/pseuds/SickSadWorldLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He turned off the water and reached for a towel, flinching as he approached the mirror, still not quite able to meet his own eyes... That thing in front of his eyes had committed the most unforgivable act in Logan’s universe: hurt Veronica Mars. And again that thing was Logan. </p><p>What was going on in Logan's head between leaving the Pi Psi party and getting arrested in season three's "Spit & Eggs." Dark, discussion of mature themes and language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Face Behind His Eyes

It was just for one night, this truce they seemed to have. When she’d looked at him across the room earlier he’d wondered how he could have ever broken up with her in the first place, how he’d managed the strength. Her face, hiding the pain that was so obvious to him, made him want to take it all back, scoop her up and pretend it was all a fever dream. He’d told her it was to avoid unbearable pain in the future, but now he wasn’t entirely sure it could get much worse than that look.

 

So after Logan dropped Wallace back near Pi Psi, he decided to head home to... well he wasn’t really sure. To run after her, tell her it was a mistake? Drink a shit ton of whiskey? Call some random girl? Really to do anything to stop the images of her, and that look, for the night.

 

Their foray to the Harborview Apartments had been a bust anyways. The girl they were looking for hadn’t even been at the party in the first place. But hey, it had provided a fun opportunity to silently not discuss the little blonde elephant in the car with said elephant’s best friend. Whoopie!

 

As he sped off the noise outside offered no indication of anything slowing down. It shouldn’t have surprised him that no one cared a girl had been drugged, possibly raped. I mean would he have a few years ago? He highly doubted it. Would he have cared an hour ago if Veronica wasn’t a likely target? If it wasn’t a way to help her in a way she’d actually allowed, albeit tentatively? To save her? Again an unnerving amount of doubt regarding his own compassion, or lack there of, crept into his psyche.

 

He felt a vibration against his left thigh, interrupting this depressing, self-reflective exercise. Hoping to see Veronica’s face, he dug his phone out of his pocket and unlocked the screen.

 

_Hearst Message Alert:_

_Suspected rapist fled from Bennis Hall. Area under investigation._

 

Every muscle in his body suddenly tensed and relaxed at the same time, an opposing force so strong he thought it might kill him for second. That was where....

 

Veronica.

 

Fuck fuck fuck. That was where Wallace and Mac lived. Where Veronica would most certainly head.

 

He flipped on the radio, hoping to find news, any news.

 

_There are days every now and again I pretend I'm okay_

 

Ha.

 

_How could I have burned paradise?_

 

Not funny.

 

_All of the things that I want to say_

_Just aren't coming out right_

_I'm tripping on words, you got my head spinning_

_I don't know where to go from here_

 

Oh for fuck’s sake.

 

He tried for one more turn of the dial. It sure as hell wasn’t going to get worse anyways.

 

_In local news, Hearst students Mercer Hayes and Moe Flater are suspected of committing a series of rapes that have occurred on campus this year after two more students were found drugged in the Bennis Hall dorm. The suspects are at large, and Hearst police ask that anyone with information call the department at 555-765-1076._

 

_And in sports…_

What’s that thing about not counting chickens?

 

\---

 

For six months he’d been a rock. During those times he so desperately wanted to poof, disappear, self-destruct, he hadn’t. He’d found some kind of strength he didn’t know existed, like a climber sawing off his arm as he froze near the summit. Found a way to hold her steady as she crumbled that night on the roof, denying the tremor that threatened to send them both crashing to the ground. Found a way to sleep, or pretend to sleep, next to her after the parking lot, her dad alongside them. Even found a way to break-up with her to save them both.

 

Well Fuck. That.

 

Logan leaned his head back and felt the cool sensation of the wall glide along his body, falling limp as he hit the Grand’s marble-tiled bathroom floor. For a moment he just sat there, sprawled out like a stoner, catatonic and unmoving. He pushed his feet so that his knees came inches from his forehead and wrapped his arms tightly around them to ground himself. Every ounce of strength drained from him as the tears tumbled, first softly and slowly, then fast and furious, finally reaching a crescendo as he heaved rocking back and forth. His muscles were so tense he could feel his spine hit the wall with each roll. He didn’t care. Didn’t care that Dick might eventually stumble home and find him. Just didn’t fucking care.

 

Standing up he reached for the knob and blasted the shower. With more effort than normal he stripped down and stepped in, forcing himself to endure the sharp cuts of the icy water. With each minute he stayed his grief molded into something else, eventually resembling a new figure entirely.

 

He turned off the water and reached for a towel, flinching as he approached the mirror, still not quite able to meet his own eyes. The monster on the other side had led her right into the arms of a rapist, had protected the son of a bitch. That thing in front of his eyes had committed the most unforgivable act in Logan’s universe: hurt Veronica Mars. And again that thing was Logan.

 

Logan dried off, threw on a pair of boxers and an old t-shirt, grabbed the bottle of Pappy he’d been saving, and sat down on the couch, forearms resting on his thighs, right hand tensed in the palm of his left.

 

One hour ticked away. Then another. And still more as a he sat on the couch, eyes narrowed, one hand cracking the knuckles on the other. The rest of his body still, only moving to pour himself a shot.

 

That man is going to die.

 

Scratch that, murder would let him off the hook, just like Aaron. Just like Beav. He wasn’t going to die, he was going to feel pain. So. Goddamn. Much. Pain.  

 

All night he thought about it, experiencing the stages of grief out of order. First depression, up next a little bargaining, then denial, finally anger. He was pretty fucking certain he’d never reach acceptance though. Twenty years from now he was sure to be stuck on stage five.

 

Mercer.

 

Logan had been his Goddamn fucking alibi. He’d provided that piece of shit rapist a back story. Vouched for the fucker. And because he did that. Because he swore he was with Mercer. Because of him. Veronica had nearly been raped. Others had been raped.

 

The sun was rising behind him, the slightest hint of golden soaked sky peering in from the balcony doors and he couldn’t take it. He needed to act, needed to see Mercer himself, to make him feel the pain she’d felt that night, and surely many nights since. The pain he felt.

 

\--

 

After downing more coffee than should probably be legal, and slightly more alcohol than would have been had he even been 21, Logan grabbed his keys and headed to the Xterra.

 

Driving along the streets of Neptune he wasn’t entirely sure where he was headed. General indicators told his brain that it was somewhere in the direction of the Sheriff’s station, but most of the scenery was a blur. He was about two streets away from the Mars’ residence when he started to experience classic signs of a panic attack, so he turned around and pulled into the parking lot of a diner.

 

He’d wanted to simultaneously fall to her feet and apologize and run away as fast as possible. In the end, he knew he couldn’t face her, face her dad, or worst of all look into her eyes and risk seeing himself reflected back in them.

 

Instead, he slammed his head back against the headrest and tried to remember where the nearest liquor store was that might be open at eight a.m. on a Sunday. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a police car parked up front of the diner. Sitting there idly not doing shit. Like always. Maybe if they spent a little more time doing their fucking job they’d have figured it out, rather than Veronica doing it herself again, because he knew she had. Risking her life because they were too fucking incompetent to solve anything themselves. And did they have Mercer? Did they have his lacky? He realized in all his revenge seething he hadn’t actually bothered to check if they’d be caught.

 

He turned the dial on the radio again, hoping to get to any kind of news station, his phone having been forgotten on the coffee table in a rush to do, well, whatever it was he was fucking doing right now.

 

Eventually he reached the local news and weather channel. After an agonizingly unnecessary five-day weather report (Surprise, surprise Neptune residents, it’ll be 70s and sunny in Southern California in December!), and a carpet cleaning commercial (Really?) the news segment began a minute late, on the 4s instead of 3s. Fucking liars.

 

_As we can now report, two Hearst student are in local custody after their alleged involvement in a series of rapes that has left the college’s community shocked and scared. We’ll have more on the alleged rapist and his accomplice coming up at the top of the next hour._

 

So they were behind bars, likely in Neptune, just waiting for him. Right then Logan had a plan, the first one he’d had in eight hours. He popped the Xterra’s hatch, and hopped out of the car. Not exactly a baseball guy, Logan had grabbed one of Dick’s bats and stashed it in the back right around the time Veronica had begun to involve herself in the case. She’d have found Dick Sr.’s gun again, but the bat was a little easier to explain away if she ever inquired.

 

Gripping the bat he flipped the handle around in his hands, feeling the cold metal barrel against the inner pads of his knuckles. He glanced toward the window, animal instinct taking over as he threw himself, bat cocked above his head, into the waiting cop car.

 

Crack.

 

All of his energy pulsed through his arms as the bat came down against the glass and metal, releasing toxins he didn’t even know existed.

 

As he thrust the bat further against the car’s windshield he caught a glimpse of his own face in the side mirror. He didn’t look away, instead staring back at himself as he pounded harder and harder, crushing every feeling of guilt into the glass as it shattered like he did. He turned the bat to the mirror and took one more look, grinning, before following through, smashing the son of a bitch’s reflection into hundreds of pieces.

  
He heard the cops running toward him but all he could feel was a sick satisfaction; he’d beaten the first of Veronica’s demons, now he’d get a chance to meet the second.

**Author's Note:**

> Submission for VMars Fic Recs March 2015 Prompts, 6d.
> 
> As always I own nothing, not the characters, or the songs by Rascal Flats, Evenenscence, and Lifehouse, which were all chart toppers in 2006. 
> 
> I really wanted to explore the guilt and responsibility Logan appears to feel for protecting Mercer when the audience is left to infer his motives at the end of the episode. After writing though, I may expand to other snapshots of when Logan lashed out to avenge Veronica's pain.


End file.
